§ Order for Committee read.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair."
§ COLONEL SIBTHORP, pursuant to notice, rose to move that the House resolve itself into Committee On that day six months. He Strongly disclaimed being actuated in so doing by any unkind feel- 846 ing towards the sister kingdom. On the contrary, he always had voted, and always would vote, for any measure which he really believed was for the benefit of Ireland; and, acting upon the same principle, if he thought the present Bill would tend permanently to the relief of that country, he should have felt it his duty to support it. But it was no such thing; and it was just intended to cloak the delinquencies of the Government in their Irish policy. When he was at school he was taught to believe that two and two made four, and that two taken from four left two remaining; but the returns which had been laid upon the table on the subject of these advances to Ireland, did not appear to go upon that rule. The total amount of loans and grants made to Ireland during the last ten years, amounted to no less than 12,027,432l 13s. 2d. The loans amounted to 8,704,225l. 7s. 8d.; the loans repayed to 3,184,421l.; leaving a balance still due of five millions and a half—an awful sum. And yet there had been no assurance from the noble Lord when he proposed a grant of 300,000l.—an awful sum too—that no more would be required. But before this grant was agreed to, the House and the public had a right to know what chance there was of getting it back again. That was only the course which every prudent man would adopt. The right hon. Baronet the Secretary for Ireland had said that "rate uncollected was not rate in arrear." For his own part, he didn't understand such phrases, for if a man owed him 5,000l., and didn't pay it, he should say it was in arrear. The right hon. Baronet had said he "hoped the condition of the country would soon improve." Well, hope was the poor man's staff; but, if he had had no dinner, hope wouldn't relieve his hunger; and he asked the right hon. Baronet whether be would assure the House that there should be no further demands for money for Ireland. He believed that they would never hoar the end of these loans and advances unless the House determined on putting a stop to them. He wished to see the sister kingdom not only happy and prosperous, but maintaining its position; at the same time, if successive Administrations had governed the country rightly, Ireland would never have required assistance from the Imperial Exchequer. Holding these views, he should certainly persist in his Amendment.
§ Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Ques- 847 tion, in order to add the words "this House will, upon this day six months, resolve itself into the said Committee," instead thereof.
§ MR. H. A. HERBERTsaid, whenever this question had been approached by the House, there had been assertions hazarded so totally at variance with the facts, that he thought some Irish Member should take the first opportunity of making a few observations upon the subject of Irish loans and grants; more especially when English Members took every occasion of making assertions that were totally unwarranted, and insinuations which personally would be most insulting. The very persons who the oftenest spoke on these subjects, and mode those assertions the most recklessly, were just those who, by every remark they made, showed a total ignorance of the subject on which they spoke. On a former occasion it had been said that an Irish loan was the same as an Irish grant; and upon another occasion it had been asked in contemptuous tones, "What is an Irish loan?" He held in his hand a very comprehensive return, moved for by the hon. Member for Glasgow, which would aid to answer that question. From this it appeared that from the year 1817, when the Exchequers of England and Ireland were consolidated, up to 1845, the total loans to Ireland were 11,326,596l, of which sum 8,483,201l. had been repaid to 1848, leaving a balance of 2,843,395l. In this sum he had left out the loans made during the three years of famine, because he proposed dealing with them on a differ-rent principle. He was not prepared to show that every loan that had been made during the period of famine had been repaid before it was asked for, and before the famine was over; but what he was prepared to show was, there had been nothing in the financial transactions between the two countries to warrant the assertion that a loan to Ireland was tantamount to a grant; and that, as a general rule, the loans to Ireland had been punctually repaid. Well, he found that out of the sums which had been lent to Ireland between 1817 and 1845, there at present remained a balance on the face of the account of 2,843,395l, which he must say was not a very large sum out of 11,326,596l He pegged to observe, too, that there was a large part of the instalments not yet due, and that with regard to a great part of the workhouse loans, there was an understanding that they were not to be immedi- 848 ately demanded. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, whether it was not the fact, that if the Government had pressed for repayment of the workhouse loans they would (except perhaps in the case of three or four of the more distressed unions) have been repaid also? He would next ask the House to look at the large repayments which had been made during the period of the famine, notwithstanding the unparalleled sufferings of the country during that calamity. He found that the total local taxation of the country amounted in 1840 to 1,306,937l., while in 1848 it had risen to 3,077,164l. In the same period the poor-law valuation had fallen from 13,272,797l. to 9,000,000l. Well, notwithstanding this great increase of taxation, this depreciation of property, and the visitation of a famine during the period, Ireland had repaid on loans 370,283l. in 1846, 514,481l. in 1847, and 357,117l. in 1848, making an aggregate repayment in those three years of 1,241,881l. Now, he put it to the House whether, in the face of these facts, there was anything like the shadow of justice in the allegation of the hon. and gallant Member for Lincoln, that Irish loans were tantamount to Irish grants. With reference to particular instances, he found that out of 83,321l. lent to the county of Kerry, from 1834 to 1847, at 5 per cent, a balance of 13,743l. remained due to the Treasury in 1847; and since that period the whole balance had been paid off. Again, he found from a return lately obtained by the hon. Member for the University of Dublin, that out of 27,931l. 16s. 5d. lent to the county of Mayo at 5 per cent, 25,219l. had been repaid up to the 1st of January, 1846, leaving a balance of 2,711l. Of these sums, it appeared, by reference to the items in the return, that only 225l. 6s. 5d. principal, and 73l. 13s. 9d. interest, was due at the date of the return (the 19th of March last). He would next call the attention of the House to the following important extract from the evidence given by Sir J. Burgoyne before the Devon Commission in 1845:—
In pursuance of an order of the House of Commons, dated the 3rd of May, 1843, a return was presented, being a general statement of the transactions of the Commissioners of Public Works, from the appointment under the 1st and 2d William IV., chap. 33, showing the working of Exchequer-bill issues, with repayments, and the estimated profit up to January 5, 1843. This statement, made out in strict accordance with the 849 principle adopted in a similar one furnished by the English Loan Commissioners, and which was referred to this board as a model for theirs, exhibits an estimated profit, up to the 5th of January, 1843, of 32,980l.; a statement on the like principle, if carried up to the 6th of January, 1844, would show an estimated profit of 47,374l.; and if to January, 1845, of 61,719l. There is another way of estimating the profits arising to the public from the operation of loans made by Exchequer bills, and which appears to coincide with the intention of the Legislature, as expressed in the 1st and 2d William IV., chap. 33, sect. 57, and this consists in striking a balance between the total amount of interest paid by Government on the bills issued up to the given period, and that received from the debtors of the board to the like date. The profit at the foot of loan transactions, when estimated on the principle last adverted to, will appear to be much greater than under that which recognises as one of its elements a debtor and creditor interest account at 3 per cent with the Exchequer, for a reason which will be obvious. Thus, if to the amount of interest on loans made by Exchequer bills which has been actually received from parties, viz., 161,056l., 13s. 2d., we add the amount due on the 6th of January, 1845, 17,246l. 2s. 9d., there is a total of 178,302l. 15s. 11d.; from that deduct the amount of interest paid on bills issued for the same period, 86,480l. 1s. 7d., and there appears a profit of 91,822l. 14s. 4d.; from this, however, it would be necessary to deduct bad debts, estimated at 21,836l 5s. 3d., which leaves a net profit of 69,986l. 9s. 1d.Next, with respect to railway loans. On this subject he could not, as an Irish Member, mention the name of the late Lord G. Bentinck without an expression of the deepest gratitude; because he believed that if the large and gigantic scheme which that noble Lord propounded to the House had been adopted, the result would have been equally fortunate as it had been with regard to the small and diminutive scheme which had since been adopted in its stead. He found that out of 157,200l. lent to the Dublin and Kingstown Railway, 99,595l. 17s. 4d. had been repaid, and that the balance was in course of repayment by half-yearly instalments of 3,000l There was no statement in the return of any arrear of principal, and the amount of interest due was only 1,874l. In the case of the loans to the Dublin and Drogheda Railway, the Great Southern and Western, the Waterford and Kilkenny, and Midland Great Western, the columns for "interest in arrear" and "principal in arrear" were each filled up with the word "nil." With regard to some of the recent loans to Ireland, he begged to remind the House that they had not only been forced upon the country against the remonstrances of every man of sense connected with it, but they had been spent with great prodigality. They had, therefore, excited no 850 gratitude in return. He did not, however, dispute the generosity of Parliament even in these cases, though he certainly did blame their discretion. It had been stated that large sums of money had been paid out of the English Exchequer for the relief of the Irish poor. He denied the existence of the English Exchequer. England having by bribery obtained the union of the two countries, the two Exchequers were consolidated in 1817. There was now only one Exchequer; and when a great calamity like that of the recent famine occurred, he thought that the portion of the kingdom so afflicted had a right to look for relief from the common fund. Would it be suggested as a reason for not making further advances, that some of the districts were so poor that they were not able to pay? Surely not. No Member of that House, he was certain, would sanction the proposition, that because particular districts were distressed, all the people in them must therefore starve unaided. The House of Commons, which gave 20,000,000l. to emancipate the negroes, which only the other day affirmed the principle that 1,000,000l. a year should still be spent upon a scheme of most doubtful issue, could never refuse to advance a paltry loan to save the Irish people, whom they had for centuries so cruelly ill treated, from starvation.
§ MR. P. FRENCHsaid, that the hon. and gallant Member for Lincoln did not seem to understand the nature of the Bill before the House. The money which it was proposed to advance was simply money that was required to make good the monstrous waste, the reckless extravagance, of the Government officers who had been intrusted with the execution of the Labour Rate Act. The people of Ireland were ready and willing, now as ever, to repay to the full extent any money that had been bonâ fide laid out for their advantage; but they objected, most naturally, to sanction the waste committed in every possible way by the Government officers. Contrary to the wishes of the whole country, the authorities had insisted upon superseding the ordinary guardians of the poor in Ireland, by a set of officials under their own immediate control; and the result of the appointment of these paid vice-guardians had been exactly what the country had expected. The rates had everywhere increased to the most ruinous extent, while the wants of the poor were worse provided for than before. For ex- 851 ample, the debt of the union of Listowell, which, when the vice-guardians came into office was only 5,400l., had reached, by the time they went out of office, the enormous amount of 12,000l.; the debt of the Gal-way union had in like manner increased from 7,000l. to 12,000l; and the whole list of unions would exhibit, if examined, corresponding results. The details of their management were perfectly monstrous; he held in his hand statements showing that the abuses which they permitted were sufficient to keep a whole country in a state of pauperism; from every load of coals, for example, furnished to particular unions he could prove that 112 lb. were subtracted; while the milk, bread, and other provisions, were of the most inferior description, and altogether fraudulent in quantity. With such facts before him, he was at no loss to account for the expenditure of the advances which had been in-trusted to the management of these functionaries.
§ MR. R. M. FOXrose to complain of a return which had been sent in by the Poor Law Commissioners, with reference to a union with which he was connected. All he had to say of that return was, that it was a complete fiction from beginning to end, the effect of which was to make the union appear as defaulters; and though the guardians remonstrated, the commissioners refused to make the proper alteration. The fact was, that the commissioners were collecting the money as unpaid relief advances, and appropriating it to the ordinary poor-law purposes. He cordially approved of the Bill, which had been conceived in a fair and liberal spirit, and which, while it did no more than justice, he could not say fell short of it. It was important, however, that the House should examine carefully the manner in which the public money was now expended in Ireland. That money was expended now either under the Commissioners of the Board of Works, or the poor-law authorities, in both of which departments he believed there was room for economy.
§ MR. P. SCROPEhoped the House would remember that vice-guardians had only been appointed when the elected guardians had failed to perform their duty, and to give relief even when the lives of the poor had been in danger from the intensity of the famine. So far from wishing this Bill postponed, he regretted that it had been so long delayed; at the same time he must protest against the manner in 852 which the money had been expended in the distressed unions. The proper course would have been to have made the unions self-supporting by employing the poor in profitable works; but the plan which had been pursued was to keep them in idleness, or, if employed at all, employed only in works of a perfectly unproductive and useless character. During the time he was in Ireland he had seen grass growing upon the heaps of stones, and in some instances crops of potatoes on the stones, which those who received relief had been employed in breaking. Surely that was not a wise or sensible appropriation of public money. [Cries of "Question"] The question was—should they vote 300,000l. to pay the debts of certain distressed unions, and spread over forty years the repayment of the money already advanced? And that was a question requiring their serious consideration. He had selected eleven of those unions, four in Clare, five in Mayo, and two in Galway—these he found had expended in the relief of the poor during the two years ending December, 1849, 725,000l., of which sum the unions themselves had contributed only 250,378l. The remainder, nearly half a million, had either been made up already, or was to be made up, from the pockets of the ratepayers of England, or those who contributed to the rate in aid. The objection he had always raised to this mode of spending money was, that it was not only wasteful and improvident, but was forestalling the resources of the country. What could be a more insane or suicidal mode of relieving distress than by keeping the recipients of such relief in idleness, or employing them in useless works? In the Limerick union last year—certainly not one of the worst administered in Ireland—where there was a debt of 61,000l., there being at the same time 12,000 paupers in the workhouse, of whom 9,358 were able-bodied, 6,600 of them being ablebodied adults—when he visited that union at six o'clock on a fine afternoon last summer, how did the House suppose he found those ablebodied paupers employed? Why, they were all in bed, though they had done nothing during the day ill the shape of work. Could there be a more unwise, improvident, or demoralising system of giving relief? Why not expend the money which the relief cost in employing these persons profitably in reclaiming waste lands, making roads, arterial drainage, or other permanent im- 853 provements? But it was the opinion of the poor-law authorities that the more useless and unproductive the works on which the poor were employed, the better. His object was not to oppose or delay the Motion for going into Committee, but to urge upon the House that before more money was expended they had better decide upon the mode in which it should be applied, and do so in time.
§ MR. MONSELLwished to be allowed to make one observation. After the charge which the hon. Gentleman had made against the Limerick union, in consequence of finding the ablebodied paupers in the workhouse all idle and in bed at six o'clock in the evening, the House would perhaps be surprised to hear that the only day on which the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had visited the workhouse in that union was a Sunday; and he thought the House would be able to see whether there was any ground for his strictures on the Limerick guardians, when they found him complaining that they had sent the paupers to bed, instead of employing them in the cultivation of the land, at six o'clock in the evening on a Sunday.
§ COLONEL DUNNEwas of opinion that this grant was needed in consequence of the maladministration of the poor-law in Ireland. In his opinion the cause of the distress which prevailed in many of those unions was entirely owing to the maladministration of the law by the Government officers. In some instances the effect of their bad management had been to increase the expenditure double and treble. The fault was not with the Irish landlords or the elected guardians, and this was sufficiently proved by the fact, that during the time that thirty-three unions had been under the official guardianship of the nominees of the Government, the taxes for the relief of the poor in Ireland had reached over 2,000,000l., and that, too, at a time when provisions had been lower in price than in any previous year. It was also a matter worthy of remark, that the expense of the administration of the poor-law under the paid guardians, had been far greater than under the elected guardians.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
§ The House divided:—Ayes 132; Noes 12: Majority 120.
§ Main Question put, and agreed to.
§ The House then went into Committee.
§ Clause 1.
§ COLONEL DUNNEsuggested that after 854 the words "unions," the words "electoral divisions within those unions" be inserted.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERbelieved it was ascertained, when the Bill was prepared, that no such words were necessary. The debts were due from the unions, though as between the several electoral divisions, particular electoral divisions might be the parties who were to pay. In such a case, when the debt should be discharged out of this 300,000l, it would be due from the electoral division to the Government. However, he would take care that inquiry wads made whether there was any doubt upon the point.
§ MR. P. SCROPEwished to know how the advance of 300,000l. was to be apportioned among the distressed unions of Ireland, as he understood that their liabilities amounted to 513,000l?
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, it was with great pleasure he informed the hon. Gentleman that, on the 31st December last, those liabilities were reduced to 392,000l.; and, therefore, looking to the efforts that were still in progress, he had great hope that this advance of 300,000l would extinguish all the remainder of the liabilities. The debts of what were called the thirty worst unions amounted to from 250,000l. to 270,000l., which would leave from 30,000l. to 50,000l. of this advance applicable to the debts of electoral divisions in some of the other unions. The money would be placed at the disposal of the Poor Law Commissioners, acting through the poor-law guardians in each union, who would examine into the debts charged against the unions, and strike off what appeared to be exorbitant charges. He had certainly no idea that the penalties insisted upon by some of the contractors would be allowed.
§ MR. STAFFORDcomplained that the expenses incurred by many of these unions had been increased by the delay in passing this Bill, because they might have been able to purchase food cheaper elsewhere if they could have discharged their liabilities with the present contractors. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had talked of poor-law guardians and poor-law commissioners but, in fact, these were mere cyphers, who had no other business than to execute the orders of a central authority, and the Bill was nothing more than an attempt to place the whole rateable property of Ireland, where debts had been contracted to the poor-law, under the hands of Sir Charles Trevelyan.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 2.
§ MR. P. SCROPEwished to know how much money had been advanced on loan to Ireland since the famine?
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, the whole sum amounted to 4,335,000l., of which the sum of 100,000l. had been repaid, leaving still due the sum of 4,235,000l., which, with the 300,000l. now proposed, would make the total liability of Ireland, 4,535,000l.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Clause 3.
MR. STAEFORDagain complained of the unlimited discretion with which this clause invested the Treasury, both in making the advances and in arranging the time of repayment, and under which the grossest partiality might—he did not say would—be practised. This was a power greater than any Government had ever asked before.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERadmitted that the powers were anomalous, and he should be very glad if any scheme could be devised to take them out of his hands. He had done his utmost to discover some rule which might be laid down that would be applicable to all eases, but he found it was impossible; and he did not see any other way in which they could deal with the vast variety of cases that existed in Ireland, but to leave it with the Treasury.
§ MR. CLEMENTSthanked the Government for the measure then before the House, for he believed it would do much to raise the country from its present state of prostration, and make the poor-law work better than ever. Under the Labour Rate Act, twenty years was the time allowed for the repayment of advances; but since that period, the Treasury had arranged that the greatest limit of time should be given to the unions which were in the most distressed condition. He believed that if only forty years were given to unions such as Clare and Limerick, other unions would be grievously disappointed, and that the Bill would not be considered in the light of a boon.
§ MR. MONSELLsaid, the fact was, that in Ireland, honesty had been found to be the worst policy. He knew eases of his own knowledge, where unions had been screwed to the uttermost, and rates to the amount of 14s. had been paid. In such cases no money was received from the Treasury, while in neighbouring unions 856 not more than 2s. in the pound was levied, but by having noisy guardians, noisy inspectors, or perhaps noisy Members of Parliament, large sums were received from the Treasury. To prevent the like partiality shown in allowing time for repayment, he would suggest that a uniform rate of 6d. in the pound should be levied upon each townland equally for repayment of that portion of the debt due by it.
§ COLONEL DUNNEwas also anxious that some scale should be laid down. He had known unions where from 10s. to 14s. were levied for their own poor, afterwards assessed to the rate in aid for the benefit of unions that had hardly paid anything.
§ MAJOR BLACKALLwas also in favour of a uniform rate of 6d. in the pound on each townland, though he was aware that that would not, in some very distressed cases, repay the whole debt in forty years.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERthought the proposition of the 6d. rate mentioned by the hon. Member for the county of Limerick, a very good one, and he would be very glad to see it adopted; but he was precluded from inserting it in the Bill.
§ LORD NAASsaid, that the power given to the Treasury was the matter now before them, and the question was not one of payment, but of liability.
§ MR. G. A. HAMILTONproposed an Amendment for the purpose of clearly defining the proportion to be borne by each townland in the union or electoral division, which was adopted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
§ VISCOUNT BERNARDsuggested that it would be of advantage if the term of forty years was adopted decisively by the Act, leaving it to any union to apply for leave to repay the annuity in a shorter period if they pleased. He thought the working of the clause would be much better left in the hands of the Poor Law Commissioners than in the Treasury.
§ MR. CLEMENTSsaid, that he agreed so entirely with a suggestion made by the noble Lord the Member for Bandon, that he should move an Amendment in order to prevent the Commissioners of the Treasury from having the power of shortening the duration of the debt at their own mere will and discretion, and to give power to the guardians to elect a shorter time than forty years for repayment, should they find themselves in a position to discharge the debt sooner.
§ Amendment proposed, page 4, 1. 10, 857 to leave out all the words from the words "payable for" to the word "And" in line 13, in order to insert the words "forty years,"—instead thereof.
§ LORD NAASurged the Government to consent to give the full period of forty years for repayment of advances, unless the guardians themselves should wish for a shorter time.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERdeclined to accede. He thought the request unreasonable, seeing that the Government were giving so much.
§ LORD J. RUSSELLsaid, that when he proposed the Bill, he never thought it would have been treated in such a manner. It was intended as a means of giving relief to Ireland, and it was treated as if the Government wanted to gain an advantage by it. The power given in the third clause to the Government, to extend the period for repayment of the advances to forty years, if necessary, was considered by them to be a very great relief. Yet the whole Bill seemed to be considered rather as an injury than a benefit. He did not think that that was the spirit in which the Bill should have been met by Irish Members.
§ MR. STAFFORDassured the noble Lord that he was quite mistaken in supposing that the Bill had been received in any other manner, or viewed in any other light, than as a relief. But there were two evils which they had to contend with. They had, in the first place, a poor-law which had completely broken down in thirty unions, and they wanted to avoid giving to the central board of the poor-law more power than was necessary. They had suggested, with that object, two Amendments. One, proposed by the hon. Member for the University of Dublin, to settle the proportionate amount to be levied upon each townland; and the other, which was under discussion, by the hon. Member for Leitrim, to fix the time for repayment of advances. There was nothing inimical in those propositions.
§ MR. G. A. HAMILTONthought that the Government had gone a great way in bringing forward this Bill, and that the people of Ireland had a right to be grateful to them for it. Some parts of Ireland, which had not suffered the pressure of distress to so great a degree as others, were ready to repay their advances within a shorter time; but it would be satisfactory to the more distressed districts to know that a further extension of time would be granted to them.
§ MAJOR BLACKALLopposed the Amendment. It appeared to him that if it were carried, the Treasury would be placed in the position of being obliged either to make the advance, or, if the case appeared at all doubtful, to refuse it altogether. Now he thought it would not be well to have a union refused altogether.
§ MR. SCULLYsupported the Amendment. Whatever might be the case with the very distressed unions in the west of Ireland, he did not think the Bill, as it stood, was so well fitted for the unions of Tipperary as it would be if the Amendment were carried.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERasked the hon. Gentleman to name an instance in which the Treasury had dealt harshly with a union in Tipperary.
§ MR. SCULLYsaid, that the Poor Law Commissioners had summarily dismissed a board of guardians, and appointed paid guardians in their stead, merely because they refused to strike a rate for repayment of advances, which they did not think the union was in a condition to pay. And, as a proof that they were right, the paid guardians themselves did not attempt to strike a rate for the purpose.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that that was no answer to him. It was not a case in point. They were discussing the leaving in the hands of the Commissioners of the Treasury the power of exercising their discretion in cases of advances to distressed unions, as to the time which they would allow for repayment. It had nothing to do with the case mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.
§ MR. ROCHEbelieved that the moral effect of this Bill had been exceedingly good. Many acres of land had been taken into cultivation that but for the introduction of this Bill would have remained un-tilled. He trusted the Government would reconsider the proposition of the hon. Member for Leitrim. It was expected that forty years would be allowed throughout Ireland for repayment under the provisions of the Bill, and the beneficial moral effect would be greatly diminished if it were found that this was not the case. If the present Ministry were to remain in power during the forty years, he might be content to leave it to their discretion to demand the repayment. But the Bill did not extend the time of repayment for a single year, except at the discretion of the Treasury.
§ Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
859§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 85; Noes 31: Majority 54.
§ Clause agreed to, as were Clauses 4, 5, and 6.
§ Clause 7.
§ MR. MONSELLwished to be informed what had been done by the Poor Law Commissioners towards erecting additional workhouse accommodation in Ireland.
§ MR. STAFFORD, before that question was answered, desired to put the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer in mind of the strong remonstrances which had been forwarded to the Government by the Limerick union, against any alteration of their ancient boundaries. In return for the generous way in which that union had relieved the necessities of the poor during a period of great distress, he hoped that the Government would accede to their earnest supplications for the preservation of their ancient limits.
§ MR. H. A. HERBERTmade a similar request on behalf of the unions of Listowel and Tralee.
§ MR. F. FRENCHwished to call the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to a hardship in the operation of the poor-law in Ireland, which he was afraid there were no legal means of remedying. At the time that the electoral divisions were altered, there happened to be some townlands which were within a union on which a rate of 3s. had been struck for the relief of the poor; those townlands were then joined to another union, in which, shortly after the change, another rate of 4s. 6d. was struck, and to which those townlands of course would be subject.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that, with regard to the first question which had been put to him as to the building of additional workhouses, he entirely concurred with the hon. Member for the county of Limerick that nothing was so essential, he would not say so desirable, as the erection of workhouse accommodation for all the unions which had recently been formed. He could not give the hon. Gentleman any very recent information as to what had been done in that respect by the Poor Law Commissioners, but he hoped to receive information from the Commissioners in a few days. But this he knew, that up to March 31 the Government had supplied the Commissioners with all the funds that they required for erecting additional workhouses. With regard to the case of alleged hardship mentioned by the hon. Member for Ros- 860 common, his answer was that the town-lands in question could not eventually suffer from the infliction of double rates, as the first rate was levied for expenses already incurred by them, and the second was for money that would be expended by the union for the relief of the poor in those townlands.
§ MR. FRENCHThe right hon. Gentleman had no right to assume that the first rate was levied for past expenditure. He did not think it was just to call upon the townlands under such circumstances to pay double rates.
§ Clause agreed to, as were also the remaining clauses.
§ House resumed.
§ Bill reported; as amended to be considered on Monday next.